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Facebook Knows What You're Streaming (bloomberg.com)

Facebook is gathering information about the shows Roku and Apple TV owners are streaming. The company then uses the Facebook profile linked to the same IP addresses to tailor the commercials that are shown to individual users. From a report on Bloomberg: For the past few weeks, the social network says, it's been targeting ads to people streaming certain shows on their Roku or Apple TV set-top boxes. It customizes commercials based on the Facebook profiles tied to the IP addresses doing the streaming, according to a company spokesman. He says Facebook is trying out this approach with the A&E network (The Killing, Duck Dynasty) and streaming startup Tubi TV, selecting free test ads for nonprofits or its own products along with a handful of name brands. This push is part of a broader effort by social media companies to build their revenue with ads on video. Twitter is placing much of its ad-sales hopes on streaming partnerships with sports leagues and other content providers. In October, CFO Anthony Noto told analysts on an earnings call that the ads played during Twitter's NFL Thursday Night Football streaming exclusives had been especially successful, with many people watching them in their entirety with the sound turned on. The participants in these partnerships don't yet have a default answer to questions such as who should be responsible for selling the ads or who should get which slice of revenue.

59 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. 100% positive I made the right decision by Snotnose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    by never creating a FB account. Fuck you Zuck.

    1. Re:100% positive I made the right decision by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      Yep, I have to agree with you and once again say:

      "Yet another reason not to be on Facebook".

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:100% positive I made the right decision by Captain+Centropyge · · Score: 1

      Same here. So happy I didn't get caught up with Facebook.

      --
      Bite my shiny metal ass!
    3. Re:100% positive I made the right decision by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      by never creating a FB account. Fuck you Zuck.

      Bingo, same here.

      I look at the few Facebookaholics I know and I pity them.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    4. Re:100% positive I made the right decision by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I deleted my facebook account and 99% of my SPAM disappeared.

    5. Re:100% positive I made the right decision by Huckleberry_Hell_Raz · · Score: 1

      So you can watch movies with unskippable FBI warnings and trailers (you know, commercials)? Yeah, that will show them!!!

    6. Re: 100% positive I made the right decision by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Well, besides Shrimp Week at Red Lobster. And $5 for 2 Big Macs. And Magnum XLs when I go visit your mother.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. I dont get it by JustNiz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How are Facebook even able to see what other devices on your LAN are doing? Have they made some deal with ISPs or something? Does this shock headline silently presume everyone necessarily controls their Roku or AppleTv through a cellphone with a facebook app running on it?

    1. Re:I dont get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Roku and Apple send Facebook, and anyone else that cares the pay, the information on what you are streaming, along with your IP and whatever else they care to send. Facebook then uses that information to send an ad to you. As an added bonus you are paying Apple and/or Roku a monthly fee so they can do this.

    2. Re:I dont get it by ObiWanKenblowme · · Score: 3, Informative

      Facebook (the app) can't, but Facebook (the ad network streaming commercials to set-top devices through Tubi TV) can see your IP, and then compare it to Facebook (the app) users' IP addresses. What a terrible, misleading headline - Facebook knows what you're streaming because they're serving the commercials that are streaming to you. Still, note to self: NEVER use Tubi TV.

      --
      Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
    3. Re:I dont get it by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, and this strikes me as disgusting. Facebook, apple, google, et. al get most of their data on us through selling data and to avoid it you have to be completely disconnected. Even if you don't have a facebook account or a google account, or an Apple account, they still have masses of data on you.

      I would really like each and every data transfer to require written consent (not just a check here to agree to our terms that include selling data on you). Obviously this would be too much of a hassle so wouldn't happen.

      I don't believe our current regime, or the impending replacement regime would have any interest in protecting digital privacy rights though.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:I dont get it by sinij · · Score: 2

      It gets even more insidious - a number of apps will capture all audio in the vicinity and identify sub-hearing audio codes in shows and advertising.

    5. Re:I dont get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Exactly. That is why I don't pay for "content". They are already getting paid by selling you out to advertisers and anyone else that wants a personal profile of you.

    6. Re:I dont get it by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Roku and Apple don't see what you are streaming. The individual apps inside do however. Also you rarely pay roku directly I don't have a current credit card on my roku.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    7. Re:I dont get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      You are very naive. Roku and Apple know everything you do on your device.

    8. Re:I dont get it by sinij · · Score: 2

      This is just using and not disclosing this practice: https://www.ftc.gov/system/fil...

    9. Re:I dont get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      You bought your Apple TV didn't you? Apple gets a cut of what Netflix gets. It doesn't matter if you use pre-paid or whatever. They know what you are watching, and they can connect it with your profile.

    10. Re:I dont get it by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      I've seen the flip side of this coin too. I was in the market for a Microsoft Surface this year and had been doing a lot of research on them (or similar tablets) with my PC, laptop and phone. Sure enough, after a few weeks, watching Hulu on an Apple TV and a majority of what I see is MS Surface ads. Since I bought one and hadn't been searching, those ads disappeared.

      That's just one example that stood out to me. I'm sure there are others that are a bit more subtle.

    11. Re:I dont get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I've said too much...they are coming to get me...hel

    12. Re:I dont get it by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 5, Informative

      Roku and Apple send Facebook, and anyone else that cares the pay, the information on what you are streaming, along with your IP and whatever else they care to send. Facebook then uses that information to send an ad to you.

      Exactly wrong. It's not the device-side that's selling out your privacy at all.

      • --User points his media player (e.g. Roku) at some streaming service (e.g. A&E). As a result, A&E knows the IP address that is requesting streaming video.
      • --Streaming service shares data with some other party (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) using this IP as an identifier
      • --Other party correlates those IPs with the IPs making requests against its services and makes decisions (e.g. ads) based on that.

      It is a fundamental part of the design of the internet (as it exists today) that two different service providers can cross-correlate requests based on a semi-stable* identifier (IP) if they chose to share data. There's literally nothing the client application can do to remedy this, it's in the network-layer. You can try to fix this at the network layer with some multi-VPN setup (not just a VPN, one that assigns a different external IP to each outgoing request) but that's sort of not how the internet was designed to work. The internet was designed to be sort-of pseudonymous, but it was not designed with true anonymity (in the sense of having no identifiers) in mind.

      If you want a meatspace analogy, this is like two different dead-tree newspapers comparing their subscribers for home addresses. You want the newspapers to end up on your driveway in the morning, so you either have to give them your home address or use a different PO Box for each newspaper (which seems expensive).

      [*] Yes, IPs are not really stable identifiers. But within the timespan of a few hours/days, it's good enough to get a few extra ad views. In other words, the downside of using a stale/incorrect identifier here (multiple parties on the same IP, router rebooted and got a new DHCP) is pretty low -- they show an irrelevant ad to those folks.

    13. Re:I dont get it by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Roku and Apple send Facebook, and anyone else that cares the pay, the information on what you are streaming, along with your IP and whatever else they care to send. Facebook then uses that information to send an ad to you. As an added bonus you are paying Apple and/or Roku a monthly fee so they can do this.

      Wow, +5 Informative for something that's factually incorrect.

      The article actually explains how this works - they're getting their information from the streaming source - in this case, the A&E channel and something called Tubi TV.

      "He says Facebook is trying out this approach with the A&E network (The Killing, Duck Dynasty) and streaming startup Tubi TV, selecting free test ads for nonprofits or its own products along with a handful of name brands."

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    14. Re:I dont get it by lgw · · Score: 1

      Exactly wrong. It's not the device-side that's selling out your privacy at all.

      Oh, the devices do it too. If you have a smart TV connected to the internet, it's sending screen shot hashes back to the mothership regularly so that your viewing habits can be sold. Seems naive to assume that Roku et al aren't doing the same.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    15. Re:I dont get it by Ericular · · Score: 3, Informative

      Isn't this still wrong? Facebook doesn't even need anyone to share data.

      1. Bob logs in and uses Facebook. (Facebook now knows things about Bob, and knows Bob's IP).
      2. Bob uses his media player, which is requesting an ad from Facebook.
      3. Facebook receives the ad request, recognizes Bob's IP address, and serves up a tailored ad based on what it knows about Bob (on the good chance that it's Bob on the receiving end of the ad).

      This scenario involves no two companies sharing data. It's just Facebook correlating an external ad request to the last known IP address of a Facebook user.

       

    16. Re:I dont get it by nine-times · · Score: 1

      So what if I don't have any apps on my Roku/AppleTV that serve ads? How does Facebook determine which shows are being streamed by which IP addresses?

    17. Re:I dont get it by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      No commercials on netflix so that's ok too. And no facebook.

    18. Re:I dont get it by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 1

      If you have a smart TV connected to the internet, it's sending screen shot hashes back to the mothership regularly so that your viewing habits can be sold.[CITATION NEEDED]

      FTFY.

  3. Successful? by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    In October, CFO Anthony Noto told analysts on an earnings call that the ads played during Twitter's NFL Thursday Night Football streaming exclusives had been especially successful, with many people watching them in their entirety with the sound turned on.

    Shouldn't the ads only be considered "successful" if there is an accompanying quantifiable uptick in purchases for those products that can be attributed to those ads? All this data collection just to sell more and more ads-has anyone ever shown that they actually work?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Successful? by sinij · · Score: 1

      Advertising decoupled from actual measurable results sometimes during 90s. I don't know if ineffective even starts to describe it.

    2. Re:Successful? by sinij · · Score: 1

      You don't have to convince people to buy products, you just have to convince people to buy advertising.

      Using this definition, Google is very successful advertising company.

    3. Re:Successful? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Using this definition, Google is very successful advertising company.

      How else would you describe Google? They've only ever made non-trivial money selling ads. Like Facebook, most of their technology is around user data (harvesting, deducing demographics, etc) so that they can convince marketing drones that targeted ads are totally worth the money.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Successful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'd argue that Google is a successful ad company regardless of what definition one uses.

  4. it's fucking christmas time people! by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 4, Funny

    You better watch out,
    You better not cry,
    You better not pout,
    I'm telling you why:
    Zuckerberg is coming to town!

    He's making a list,
    And checking it twice,
    Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
    Zuckerberg is coming to town!
    He sees what you've been streaming,
    He knows demographics.
    He knows when you've been bad or good,
    So be good for profit's sake!

    OH!...You better watch out, You better not cry
    You better not pout, I'm Telling you why.
    Zuckerberg is coming to town.

    He sees what you've been streaming,
    He knows demographics.
    He knows when you've been bad or good,
    So be good for profit's sake!

    (Yeah, fine, I broke the rhyme scheme, oh well. Merry fucking Christmas everyone!)

    1. Re:it's fucking christmas time people! by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      I was tempted to alter the final line of the chorus to something like "So be good for his profits!" to get a half-rhyme, but that really forces the meter.

      While I like the reference to demographics, maybe change that line to something that rhymes with "sake"? Perhaps "He knows each choice you make"?

  5. Facebook knows when you're sleeping by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Facebook knows when you're awake
    Facebook knows when you've been bad or good
    So click the ads for Zuckerbergs' sake

  6. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Whereas this might be wise, Facebook has more information on you readily available than the FBI does, even if you don't have a facebook account.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  7. Re:What about Comcast view sharing? by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your credit card company/bank also sells your data on your purchases/credit to anyone who pays. There are companies that exist to build a personal profile of individual "consumers" and sell that data to anyone else who wants to pay for it. Yet people are worried about the government spying on them.

  8. But do they know ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... what we're screaming?

    The Internet is ruined because, money.

    The shareholders want asymptotic profit curves.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  9. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by Falos · · Score: 1

    Do what you can to throttle it. Avoid the "center ring" socnets. Mod your browser to prevent pages from loading up the various facebook microphones (no, not literal audio mics). Tell friends and Normals who take photos you're included in not to tag you. Have at least one throwaway email address.

  10. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by sinij · · Score: 1

    Even after all of this, they still know about your loli obsession.

  11. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    Why?

    Who gives a flying rat's ass that all these people are tracking us?

    Nothing will ever stop it.

    Take a deep breath and a Xanax.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  12. 'Tis the season by ausekilis · · Score: 2

    They know what you've been streaming,
    They know that you're awake,
    They've sold you to be advertized
    So bend over and close your eyes...

    Just thought I'd spread a little holiday cheer ;-)

  13. Re:What about Comcast view sharing? by sinij · · Score: 1

    Now, wait a second. You are conflating two important issues here. Issue #1 is what people with guns know about you. Issue #2 is what people with bags of money know about you. While these both related to privacy, they are not the same orders of magnitude in importance. We can also talk about people with guns talking to people with money.

  14. Dumb question? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How does Facebook know what I am streaming on my Roku or AppleTV?

  15. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    Throwaway email addresses don't matter. We can use browser/connection fingerprinting to associate all your email addresses together. If you are on the Internet you are being tracked. It is a network after all.

  16. Facebook is your friend. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Facebook watches over you.
    Everybody loves Facebook.
    Trust Facebook.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Facebook is your friend. by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      I, for one, welcome our new Facebook overlords...

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  17. Re:What about Comcast view sharing? by sinij · · Score: 1

    No, my peashooter is not going to stop any of this. However, buying off people with guns in US is astronomically expensive. You need Koch/Soros money to pull it off, and even then it doesn't work every time as last elections demonstrated. So for now, and probably in foreseeable future, we don't have to worry about people with bags of money also acquiring guns. It is one or another.

  18. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah? And how exactly? I do not use their disservices, I do not visit their website, and I block it from visiting me. So how did they get their hands on all this information, and for what reason?

    Buying, selling, and trading data. They have listeners on millions of web pages that send information back to facebook tracking what pages you go to. You can never go to facebook and they're still tracking you.

    Why? They're an ad company. You don't even need to go to Facebook to be served ads from facebook, and if you ever do join, they already have a comprehensive database on you tailor made to target you.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  19. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There's so many layers of integration, collaboration, automation, that you're not throwing one futile ("doesn't matter") wrench into one machine, you're throwing several at thousands of machines. Databases like matching points, they'll throw every incidental hint of overlap into the algorithm if they can. Profile#748c03abd3 and Profile#92bc324de81 show 41% relevance of being a common UUID, with mediocre contributions like "browser user agent similarities", but we just bought freeflashgames.fun and we're about to dump the whole thing into the sifter, emails being one more data point.

    You'll never win, no, but you'll shake some things off. Most will be of minimal impact on your life, but so is recycling a piece of paper - throw the wrenches on principle.

  20. "How about you Louis VuitOFF, Darlene?!" by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 1

    All these marketroids work so damn hard to track where people are going and what they're looking at through painstaking forensic analysis of, like, picosecond differentials of access modalities and, like, transliminal modulation of ultrasonic speaker spectrum spreads.

    And it's all completely fucking unnecessary, because the kind of people who are swayed by online ads will happily tell you what brands they like if you ask them. In fact, sometimes it's harder to get them to stop telling you about their commercial brand loyalties, as I have learned to my dismay at various Thanksgiving celebrations I've attended.

  21. So That's What I'm Not Watching by ZipK · · Score: 1

    Good to know they're personalizing the commercials that I mute and look away from.

  22. Re:When will they get it... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Yeah... I'm still getting ads for chains, whips and sound proofing for the basement.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  23. IP Address by Toshito · · Score: 1

    Are there any ISP out there who rotate or shuffle IP adresses?

    It should be easy to do periodically.

    I remember that in the early days of cable modem internet my IP address was changing from time to time.

    Now it seems much more stable.

    --
    Try it! Library of Babel
    1. Re:IP Address by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      Why would you want to have your neighbor's ads?

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re: IP Address by Toshito · · Score: 1

      I don't see ads anyway...

      And that way they couldn't track me or anyone.

      It's already stupid to try to track someone by IP. My IP address represents my wifi router. We're a family of six, with something like 15 devices connected to it, not counting visitors.

      --
      Try it! Library of Babel
  24. Re:What about Comcast view sharing? by lgw · · Score: 1

    Money is extremely powerful and important right up until the point when it's not. Money is associated with power, but shouldn't be confused with power.

    There have certainly been times and places in history when mercenary armies were common, and so money was directly power, but it's not the norm.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  25. Re:Why the ACTUAL FUCK are you still using Faceboo by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    because a nice feature of fingerprinting is that changing one of the variables changes the fingerprint, which means spoofing useragent and rotating between a couple dozen every 5 minutes is enough to throw browser fingerprinting off.

    Translation: I've made my browser even more unique, therefore they have no idea who I am!!!!!1!!1111!1

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  26. Give them IPv6 traffic by userw014 · · Score: 1

    If you're REALLY obsessed by this, force using IPv6 on your WiFi network.

    Not only are IPv6 addresses typically NOT NAT'd (they'll share a prefix that's ISP dependent but not the whole address), but properly configured devices will vary their IPv6 addresses over time.

    Of course, this solution will break other parts of your App/Web experience - especially if you disable IPv4 on your WiFi. And it's going to require you to build your own router. But FreeBSD with two ethernet ports does that just fine - and I suppose Linux could be beat into shape to do so too.

  27. Ad blindness by iTrawl · · Score: 1

    I suffer^W enjoy ad blindness. For one reason or another I seem to lose focus each time an ad shows up, regardless of location. It just registers as a patch of noise. Now, technically, I have focus issues in general as I tend to go inside my head quite regularly, but ads seems to be the pinnacle of this syndrome.

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor